


It's in the Math

by virgo_writer



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M, Humor, Mathematics, Reluctant groom, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-15
Updated: 2013-02-23
Packaged: 2017-11-18 17:04:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/563354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virgo_writer/pseuds/virgo_writer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The math never lies.  Given all relevant variables, the data suggest an unlikely, but optimal solution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Announcement

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Firefly.

"I have considered all possible variables and analyzed the data in order to calculate the optimal solution," River announced rather ominously, her expression an unreadable mixture of the different thoughts fleeting through her head.

All activity stopped, her crew apparently not as used to her non-sequiturs as she thought. Chopsticks were dropped from hands and others had paused mid-chew in order to stare at her blankly. Captain-Daddy gave her that squinty-frowny look he wore sometimes when she did something that reminded him that she wasn't just some ordinary nineteen-year-old.

"Calculated what now, 'Tross?" the Captain questioned, squinty-frowny look firmly in place.

River took her time in replying, carefully choosing her words from the muddle of thoughts so that she could get her intended meaning across as clearly as possible. "She has selected a mate."

Now it was Simon's turn to be squinty-frowny, or at least Simon's version of squinty-frowny. First he squawked and turned a sickly pale, and then he started turning red, the colour creeping in from his ears. His mouth opened and closed like a goldfish, but no sounds came out except for the occasional unintelligible gurgle.

"Simon does not approve," she explained to the table with an exasperated sigh and a reproachful shake of her head.

"That's nice, Crazy," man-named-Jayne responded flippantly from beside her, having lost interest once he realised that whatever she had calculated didn't foretell of their impending doom. His hand hovered about an inch or so from her plate, pausing only to say, "you eatin' that," before taking the cob of corn from the side of her plate.

River beamed. "See. We are like husband and wife already," she pointed out to the remainder of the table. "He has pet names and steals food from her plate without asking."

"Now hang on a minute. I didn't agree ta nuthin'," man-named-Jayne insisted, returning the corn cob sans one very large bite to her plate, as though it were instrumental somehow in their impending nuptials. If he were Persephone and she Hades he would be forced to stay with her in the Underworld indefinitely.

"Many assume that Persephone was unhappy in the Underworld when it was in fact the contrary," she told him. "It was only that Demeter missed her daughter, otherwise their union was a very happy one." It wasn't a very good analogy, what with her being more like Persephone and him more like Hades, and Simon and Captain-Daddy being the obvious choices for Demeter and Zeus respectively. Regardless she thought she'd made her point fairly enough.

Despite what many believed, Jayne was not a stupid man. He realised that sudden talk of Ancient gods was somehow a reference to himself and turned to the Captain with a look of sincere horror.

"Cap'n, I swear there's been no union'in' between me an' Moonbrain," he said seriously. "Girl's ruttin' crazy," he reminded them, as he did often. Once they were married she would teach him that it was unkind to question his wife's mental facilities in front of the others. Likewise she would ask Simon-brother not to refer to him as a man ape thing so often, as it was only fair to reciprocate.

The Captain turned his squinty-frowny look on Jayne-man, mixing it with the pointedly raised brow he used to remind the others that he was Captain and that he had every right to pry into any business that was happening on his boat. "Be that as it may, Jayne," he said coolly, anger brewing just below the surface. "It's comin' from somewhere."

Jayne balked at the implication. "You think I put it in her head that her an’ me oughta get hitched?" he said, jumping to his feet in outrage.

River shook her head. The Captain was always so quick to blame when it came to Jayne. "She will defend her husband," she promised.

Captain did not seem pleased by said promise. In fact he suddenly reminded her of her grandmother's old parrot, puffing up his feathers and flapping his wings.

"I forbid it!" brother Simon suddenly exclaimed, reacting approximately 2.732 seconds before the Captain who had been preparing himself to say the same. "As your older brother and guardian I forbid you from marrying this Neanderthal."

"I second it," Captain concurred, sharing a look with Simon that spoke of camaraderie and shared foe. "As captain of this boat I say no one gets married without my sayin' so."

Zoe the warrior woman gave a scoff. "Because that worked out so well last time, Sir," she said without inflection, the scoff that preceded her words giving the note of sarcasm it so clearly implied.

The Captain shifted uncomfortably, put in his place by Zoe's unadorned words. "I admit that I may have been somewhat misguided in the past about keepin' certain peoples apart," he conceded shamefacedly. "But I think we can all pretty much agree that Jayne and River gettin' married is a bad idea."

There were a few nods around the table of agreement - most notably from brother Simon - and a muttered comment from her husband-to-be about how he thought it sounded a bad idea for him to be marryin' anyone, especially no feng le girls likely to get all stabby if they woke up on the wrong side of the bed in the mornin'. Kaylee was the sole dissenter, shaking her head and making sad eyes at Simon and Captain-daddy for disappointing her.

"I think it's shiny," Kaylee told them with a bright sunshine filled smile. Her expression became clouded, rainy skies moving in as she spoke to the guardians. "If River an' Jayne wanna get married -"

"Jayne don' wanta get married," Jayne reminded them, which Kaylee promptly ignored.

"- then I don't think anyone here has the right to tell them they can or can't," Kaylee concluded seriously with a firm nod. Done with the serious talk, the sunshine smile returned and she beamed at River to the exclusion of the rest of the table. "Gosh it's been ages since we had weddin' on Serenity," she said excitedly. "I'll be your maid of honour," she offered before quickly backtracking once she realised that the bride was supposed to chose for herself. "I mean, if you don't have no one else you'd prefer."

River smiled, having had no questions as to who would take that role. Kaylee was her best friend and her brother's mate. It would be a cruel snub to choose anyone else.

"I ain't agreed to no weddin'," Jayne pointed out once again, his resolve seeming to get firmer with each repetition.

Kaylee sent him a look that was as patronising as it was it was sympathetic - a gentle look mollified by the fact that Jayne didn't seem to realise how futile his efforts were. "River's smarter than any of us here," she told the group. "If she says her and Jayne are gonna be hitched, then I figure there ain't nothing none of us can do about it.

"Might as well just enjoy the ride," she said with an easy shrug. "Gosh I love weddin's."

River smiled. "This is why Kaylee is maid-of-honour."

"I ain't gittin' married to no crazy girl," Jayne reiterated once more, and once more he was completely ignored, this time by Inara who took it upon herself to be the voice of reason.

"It makes sense," Inara said, her voice calm and soothing. River couldn't be sure whether that soothing tone was meant for her, or for Captain and brother who were both glaring at Jayne in a most dangerous way. It seemed that they were determined to prevent this marriage.  By lethal means if necessary.

"You're very much a woman," Inara went on in that same velvety soft tone, speaking to River although the words were clearly meant for someone else. "It's been so gradual that most of us didn't even notice," she said, glancing pointedly at the two men who tended to treat River most like the young girl she was when she first boarded the ship. "It makes sense that you would be interested in finding your complement.

"But you shouldn't limit yourself, River, to what is familiar," Inara continued, coming to the point that she had been working towards. "There are plenty of eligible men your age who would be honoured to court a girl as lovely as yourself," she said with a warm, placating smile. "Ones who -"

River cut her off with a firm shake of her head before the former companion could begin her less than flattering evaluation of her selected mate.  Inara clearly did not appreciate what she had been telling them. "I have considered _all_ variables. All data have been examined," she said with a clear emphasis on the extent of her calculations. "Jayne is optimal solution."

And then she began to explain the most important variables in detail to her still skeptical crew.

"Jayne is physically attractive," she began, ignoring the grimacing mouths of brother and Captain. "He has no need for mental alacrity and therefore does not resent the girl that she surpasses him in this way. He is tall, is rarely ill, strong, and possesses many phenotypic characteristics that one would desire to be passed on to their offspring.

"Is a shame that female does not carry a recessive gene for eye colour," she added mournfully, her gaze drifting jealously to Jayne's blue eyes. Children would receive the recessive gene, but it may be several generations before the genes made their presence known.

"He would never hit her unless she hit him first," she continued, finding it more difficult to express herself with their silent dissents being thrown to each of the variables she had identified. "He provides for his family.  Looks after his weapons.  Would always protect her if she were his."

Simon, Inara, and Captain's thoughts screamed the loudest, drowning out Kaylie's happy sighs and Jayne's out and out refusal to consider marriage to anyone. She took a small amount of solace from the fact that Jayne seemed to oppose the idea of him marrying in general and not specifically to her.

Simon thought she should want someone smart and cultured - someone like the boys they had grown up with - and didn't see that she had no need for that. Even Simon, who had been top 3% in his class, was incapable of understanding her level of thinking. The sort of intelligence that Simon thought she should desire would ultimately damn any relationship as ego was dealt critical blows every time she solved an equation that little bit faster or showed greater knowledge of some topic.

Inara, while recognizing that Jayne could be physically attractive if he was properly groomed and attired (a thought buzzed below the surface that she had paused once or twice along the catwalk when Jayne was working out shirtless down in the hold), she thought that River's match would be found in someone more gentle and more idealistic. Inara didn't see that what the River needed most was someone to ground her, not someone to follow her through the clouds.

Captain would be the most difficult to crack. She saw Aerial flashing repetitively in his head and wondered if it were intentional - wondered if he knew she wouldn't be able to ignore such emotionally charged thoughts. It was for him that she reminded that Jayne was not the instigator - she had struck him first, completely unprovoked, and he had reacted to protect himself and the others, the cash only secondary to his survival instincts.

Things were different now. Now she was crew. She was someone worth protecting.

"Why me?" Jayne spoke aloud, looking rather disgruntled due to the increasingly damning glares thrown in his direction. "There's plenty of big dumb guys 'cross the whole gorram 'verse that'd be happy to protect you if that's what you want. So why me, gorramit!" he expelled in frustration.

River tilted her head at him, trying to convey by her expression alone that her answer should be obvious. Silly man that he was, it shouldn't have to be said.

She smiled gently and delicately made her way towards him, standing toe-to-toe with her big, dumb protector. He frowned, still not seeming to know where she was going with this, and so she quickly raised herself _en pointe_ and pressed a brief kiss to his unsuspecting lips.

The jumble of thoughts surging from her crew came to an abrupt halt, and in its absence she could speak four words that were all her own.

"You make me smile," she told him.

She left him to contemplate that thought, retreating to just outside the mess hall where she could slink into the shadows and listen in on what the crew had to say as they recovered their senses.

Captain was the first to speak, hands folded behind his head in a manner that indicated he'd come to some sort of resolve. "Anything you want to add to this development, Jayne?" he asked dryly.

"I . . . I don' think there's nuthin' I can say, Mal," Jayne responded almost somberly, befuddled even.

"Right then," Captain-Saddy said, chair screeching as it scraped against the floor. "After an eventful meal, I think I'll be needin' some rest.

"Jayne," he said, turning to his merc. "If you're still engaged in the morning I'll do the honorable thing and give yer a 30 yard head start before I start shootin'."

"That's mighty decent of yer," Jayne agreed, still sombre and coming to terms with their impending nuptials.

"And if you ever hurt that girl I'll start aimin' for something vital."


	2. Bauble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jayne had hoped she might forget. She hadn't.

Time went by, as it was liable to do.

In fact nearly two weeks had gone by since Riv-the Moonbrain's unexpected little speech and nuthin had really come of it exceptin' the Captain's kindness in only shootin' him in the arm, and her prissy brother sewin' him back up after (and complainin' all the while 'bout how if it weren't for some hippo-crates oath he'd have let the wound fester and solve all their problems). Nobody said nuthin' about the apparently pending nuptials, the lot of them probably all hopin' that if they left it long enough Riv-the Moonbrain would just move on to the next thing that went and tickled her fancy.

And so it was on that note that he was taken by surprise when the girl cornered him one day - two weeks after she'd done her speechifyin' 'bout how they was gonna be married and how she'd chosen him 'cos he'd made her smile - on his way from the bathroom dressed only in a tiny towel hangin' off his hips and another wrapped around his head like a turban.

"She approves," Crazy-girl said, licking her lips appreciatively and then sliding one of her cold little hands over his chest. "Jayne-man is clearly in top physical condition."

Jayne tried not to preen at the admiration in her voice, 'cos dammit he was proud of his body and it was nice to be complimented on something when you'd gone and put some effort into it. Even if it was from the resident crazy girl. Heck, wasn't like 'Nara and Zoe ever let him know how nice he looked without his shirt on, so he'd take it where he could get it, crazy or not.

"What a man's s'posed to look like," he told her, taking a jab at he skinny, prissified brother when the opportunity presented itself.

She nodded, her eyes trailing down his body while her hand stayed firmly on his chest. He could have sworn that she could see right through that towel with the way she was lookin' at him down there - like he was big juicy piece o' meat that she was just dyin' to get her teeth into. Couldn't say he minded much.

It was gettin' uncomfortable, though, with the girl just lookin' at him like that and him not really knowin' what to do and wantin' to get back to his bunk and put some clothes on even though he knew it weren't gonna change how naked he felt under gaze. Finally she gave him one last once over and then seemed to shake herself outta whatever chain of thought she'd been having, the hazy (lustful?) look in her eyes replaced by something a bit more lucid.

"It has occurred to the girl that she has not followed correct procedure," she said, completely changing the topic (as though staring at someone like you were a starvin' man was a topic o' conversation). "I have considered that this failure to comply with formalities is the reason for your reluctance to solidify our arrangement."

Jayne frowned, trying as best as he could to make some sense of her wafflin'. He didn't know much about no procedures or formalities or what any of it could have to do with an arrangement between him and the crazy bint.

"She is not crazy," the crazy moonbrain told him, proding his chest with her very pointy index finger.

"Sure you ain't, Moonbrain," he agreed ingenuinely. "So what's all this crazy talk about then?"

She gave him a stern look and gave a sigh of frustration (it kinda reminded him of the way his Ma usdta look at him an' his brother's after they'd been caught stealin' blackberries from the Wu's garden - it was all hard and domineering, but not enough to disguise the affection that lay underneath, especially when they handed her the lil' napkin of berries they'd put aside 'specially for her).

"Easier just to show you," she told him.

The little Moonbrained river-girl dropped down to her knees and his thoughts went straight down to the gutter. It weren't his fault that it went that way - not after the way she'd been lookin' at him earlier and the particular interest she'd seemed to show in the only part of him not already on display due to his current state of undress. Any red-blooded male would have assumed the same.

"Oh no, Moonbrain," he said, taking her by the shoulders and draggin' her back to her feet. "We can't do this here. Not where anyone could just walk by an' see."

The girl frowned at him, tiltin' her head to the side in confusion. "Here is as good as anywhere. Girl has calculated," she told him. "We have exactly 2 minutes and 17 seconds without interruption."

Jayne was torn between impressed awe and disbelief. "Ain't no way we can be done an' all in two minutes, no matter how good you think you are, girlee," he said, disbelief winning out in the end.

"She can if you would stop interrupting her," Riv-the Moonbrain responded with the same frustrated affectionate look she'd worn earlier. "If you would allow me to get into position," she said, gesturing vaguely to the hands on her shoulders holding her in place.

And really, Kaylee was right. There weren't no arguing with the crazy-girl and if she thought here was as good as anywhere else on his ship (and got it in her head that she wanted to be doing those sort of things in a hallway where anyone could see them) then who was he to argue with her. The girl had already gone and told the whole ship that they were gettin' married, so there weren't anything wrong with it, 'ceptin' that it went against Mal's rule about nakedness but Mal'd broken the rule enough his ownself that Jayne doubted it had much meanin' anymore.

He nodded and let go of her shoulders, and the girl dropped back down to the ground, perching herself on one knee with her head just about waist height. And then she reached up her dress, his brain recognizing that she was going for her holster, but the rest of him far too intrigued to worry about self-preservation and gettin' the hell away from the crazy girl who'd probably had a last minute change of heart and decided she'd much rather just kill him than have her way with him. When her hand slid back down her pale thigh, it was held in a closed fist, with something small clearly enclosed within her grasp.

"What you got there now, girlee?" he asked, curiosity gettin' the better of him. His mind catalogued all the weapons he knew of that were small enough to be enclosed in the girl's tiny little fist, and it was with some relief he realized that the girl had no way of gettin' her hand on any of them.

She smiled up at him and opened her hand slowly to reveal the shiny little trinket inside. "It is a token," she told him. "Symbolic.

"She will ask and when he says yes he will wear it as a sign to others that he is not to be taken from her," she said with a sure nod.

An inkling at the back of his mind almost understood, but he ignored it, eyeing her with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion.

"The girl would like to know," she began after a few moments, only to cut herself off with a shake of her head. She swallowed on her words breathing deeply before continuing. "I would like to know," she said more slowly, and it occurred to him that all the 'shes' and 'hers' from earlier had been a sign of nervousness - now, kneeling there before him, she looked half-terrified of what would happen next.

"Will you marry me?"

He didn't respond right away, swearing silently in his head as it all sunk in.

He couldn't say no to her. Not with her lookin' all hopeful and scared and like some tiny little thing with a shiny ring sittin' in her hand. Jayne Cobb knew he was all kinds of awful, but he couldn't break some little girls heart.

"Okay," he said, tryin' hard to ignore the warmth in his belly as her whole face lit up in a bright, sunny smile that had made even Kaylee's brightness look dull. She jumped to her feet, forcing the ring onto his pinky finger - it was the only one that it had even a chance of fitting - and then throwing herself into his arms once she was sure it would stay there.

"What's goin' on here?" a new voice interrupted after a moment or two.

Jayne turned with the girl still firmly in his arms, still in nothing but a tiny towel resting low on his hips, to see Mal standing at the end of the hallway givin' him all kinds of distrustful looks.

The girl just cheered happily, unphased by Mal's angry face. She jumped out of his arms and dragged him by the hand to Mal so she could show off his new bauble. "He has agreed," she told the captain, holding out the ring for inspection

Mal looked right past it, instead eyeing Jayne with a stern look. "Has he now," Mal said, clearly displeased

Jayne ruffled defensively. "She made a good argument. Hard to disagree with her," Jayne answered back, his face impassive. "'bout the benefits and such."

"Yes," River agreed, sharing a secret smile with him when Mal wasn't lookin'. She went on, listin' the factors she'd identified as being to his benefit. "Health benefits. Tax breaks and division of property. Will be pleasing to Cobb matriarch.

"Wore him down," she added, looking thoughtful. "Nearly two weeks."

"I see," Mal said, the distrustful look on his face fading to one of meer displeasure.

"You remember what I said about this, Jayne," the captain said, still lookin' a bit stern

"I remember," he responded.

"Alright then," Mal said with a final nod before turning to the girl with a warm smile. "Congratulations, little one," he told her, giving the girl a hug.

"Wish fortune," the girl corrected, shaking her head but returning the hug. "Felicitations are for the groom."

"I think that's only true if the groom is the one doin' the chasin', little one," Mal told her affectionately as he let her go. River drifted back towards Jayne, smiling up at him. "We got a no returns policy here on Serenity," he added more seriously. "So you best be sure about this, 'Tross."

"Am sure," River answered without missing a best, still craning her neck up towards Jayne and givin' him a look that made him feel like the luckiest hudan in the whole 'Verse. "Jayne is optimal solution," she reminded them. "One I want."

Jayne couldn't help but grin, takin' small pleasure in that declaration. "Yer not so bad herself, Moonie," he told her, nudgin' her shoulder.

"Now if yer don't mind," he said after an awkward pause that had Mal glarin' at him again, He gestured to himself, indicating that he needed to get some clothes on before he caught a chill and had to go see his crazy lil' fiancee's brother and hope that this weren't the day the hudan decided he could forget about that hippo oath he kept goin' on about.

He made to exit, turnin' in the direction of his bunk, 'til he felt two tiny, cold hands grasp his bicep and tug him back.

"She will assist," the girl said, lookin' up at him with big innocent eyes that made him wonder if she even knew what she was suggestin'. She was already dragin' him off before he or the captain could protest, and really, it weren't like he could argue with a crazy girl.

"Not crazy," the girl said, soundin' almost stern and still draggin' him along. "Eccentric."

"Whatever you say, you crazy lil' woman," he replied. "Whatever you say."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not really sure if there's going to be anymore to this, but I thought I'd leave it open for now and see how we go. Never know, I might get the sudden urge to write all the way up to the Cobb-Tam nuptials.


	3. Proof

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Armed with nothing but logic, Simon tries to make his sister see reason, whereupon reason knows nothing.

Simon wasn't sure what to do about the River/Jayne situation.  In fact, he was a little lost most of the time when dealing with River, but even more so this time.

  
Short of handcuffing his sister to her bed and forbidding her from all interactions with Jayne, he really had no clue of how to approach this development.  River was notoriously good at getting the things she wanted and more stubborn than any person he'd ever met (aside from maybe the good Captain Reynolds).  Getting her to change her mind would be a monumental effort.  
And Simon was running dangerously low on ideas.

  
Drugs rarely worked (they just made things worse).  Gentle cajoling tended to put River even more offside than an order might.  Orders were unfailing followed by rebellion regardless of their content or messenger, even when she was ordered to do exactly as she intended.  If you tried dropping hints at her she’d simply go hide herself in some unreachable hideaway in the bowels of the ship, leaving you with no choice but to let it lie.  The worst was when he tried to convince her it was for her own good – that was guaranteed to have his baby sister hissing like a wet cat.

He'd rather hoped that, given time, River would lose interest and realize on her own how poor a choice she was making in Jayne.  A rim-born mercenary was in no way the ideal suitor for his genius sister who would have had her pick of Osiris society had it not ben for The Academy.  Given time, she would come to that conclusion on her own and realise how much more suited she was to someone of their own society.

In spite of his own thoughts on the matter, it had been nearly three weeks now and River hadn’t seemed to give up her interest in the mercenary.  Worse still, River had gone and spent her cut form the last five jobs buying the ape-man an engagement ring and had co-opted Kaylee into the planning of a so-called ‘Spring Wedding’.  Spring on what planet was anyone’s guess.

River had been so excited about the gem she had acquired that he hadn't had the heart to tell her that the man was the one supposed to provide the engagement ring (or that her 'diamond ring' was probably just polished off glass given the sorts of planets they'd been on of late).  He had quietly hoped to himself that Jayne would have enough sensitivity to let his sister down easy.

It was hard to quantify the shock he felt when the mercenary said ‘yes’.

This wasn't a passing phase.  This was River doggedly pursuing the thing that she wanted, in this case a 6'4" mercenary who was oh-so-wrong for his sister in ways that he couldn't even find words for.

“It is not like Beastly,” River said.  She didn't look up from the table where several pages from her notebooks were strewn around her, keeping her back to Simon as he stood in the doorway to the mess watching and waiting for the right time to talk to her. 

Simon hadn’t even realized he was thinking about Beastly, but now that she’d said it he couldn't help but note the parallels.  River had fallen in love with the stray when she was nine (not long before Simon was supposed to leave for college).  He was a bedraggled, mangy old wolfhound and River refused to be parted from him no matter how many fancy pedigrees were toted out in front of her.  She only wanted Beastly and when her parents finally managed to get rid of the thing she cried non-stop for a week.

River ‘hmmed’ in amusement, obviously reading the thoughts flitting through his head.  “Perhaps it is like Beastly,” she mused.  “Would be very sad if Simon did to Jayne what parents did to Beastly.”

Simon gaped at the suggestion.  “River! I would never –” he exclaimed, feeling terribly affronted by the suggestion that he would get rid of the mercenary and see her sister as heartbroken as she had been over that mangy mutt.

"Simon didn’t like Beastly,” she reminded him in a sombre tone.  “Was happy to see him go.”

“That doesn't mean I wanted him dead,” Simon argued.  “Or that I want to see Jayne dead.

“I may not like the ap-” he began to mutter, cutting himself off as a sharp projectile hit him between the eyes.  “Ow, River.  Be careful,” he admonished.  “You could poke someone's eye out with that.”

River finally turned from her work in order to scowl at him.  “Brother will be kind to  _zhang fu_ ,” she told him.  “We have accord.  Simon will refrain from referring to Jayne by incorrect nomenclature, and  _zhang fu_  will not bring up River’s mental state in front of others.”

Simon frowned trying hard not to dwell to long on River's choice of title.  Instead he chose to point out the flaw in her arrangement with Jayne.  “He still calls you crazy.”

“Yes,” she agreed, nodding and turning back around to paw over her papers. There was a small smile resting on her lips, one he didn't think he'd ever seen on his sister's face before.  “But means it in the nicest way.  Thinks she is crazy if she’s thinkin’ on marryin’ an old  _hudan_  like himself but does not hold it against," she explained with a perfect imitation of Jayne's provincial accent.

Simon supposed that was almost sweet in a very Jayne way.

“Won't make a difference,” River warned before Simon could open his mouth to reason with her.  “The math is indisputable.”

"I'm sure your math was perfect," Simon agreed, carefully treading into the room.  He chose his words with trepidation, not wanting to earn another paper dart to his forehead.  “But perhaps you didn’t have all the variables.”

River scoffed at the insinuation, turning around to give him what was now universally known as the ‘Simon, you're a boob’ look.  “What part of  _all_  the variables do you not understand, Simon?” she asked condescendingly

Simon smiled tightly.  “Humour me,” he suggested, earning a dramatic, exasperated sigh from his long suffering sister and a wave of her hand indicating that he should go ahead. It would certainly do him good to get the words out even if River believed all his efforts would be in vain. 

Simon took a breath to prepare and then armed himself with his best weapon: logic.  It was all about the math, after all, and while the math itself might have been perfect (River’s math couldn’t be anything but), there had to be something missing if it was all pointing to Jayne Cobb as his sister's perfect mate.           

 _‘Perhaps I should start with the obvious,’_  he thought for a moment before launching into his argument. “River, you are a genius,” he stated plainly, without embellishment or hyperbole.  “While you might find strife with someone like yourself, surely you’d get bored with Jayne’s . . . simple-mindedness."  It was the kindest word he could think of to describe the ap-mercenary (it wasn’t safe to think ‘ape-thing-gone-wrong’ even in his mind with River’s hand straying towards a fresh sheet of paper).  “You said yourself he was brainless.”

  
“I said he had no need for it,” she said drolly.  “Does not mean Jayne is deficit in mental acumen.

“He is unlearned,” River continued, emphasizing the important distinction between the two.  “Not unintelligent.

“Scored 124 on Human Intelligence Questionnaire.”

Simon scoffed asking with a sneer, "When would the likes of Jayne Cobb have been administered the HIQ?"  His response was not in small part due to the fact that Jayne’s score was only 14 points below his own and put them both within the same intelligence band (albeit at different ends of that band).

“Yesterday,” River responded.  “Knew Simon would asked so hacked cortex and administered test to Jayne myself.

“He would have scored higher but he second-guessed many of his answers and failed to complete the full questionnaire in the allotted time,” she added thoughtfully, pausing briefly in her work so as to examine her hair with feigned indifference. “How do you think she would look with auburn hair?”

“Auburn?” Simon questioned, thrown by the apparent non sequitur.

“Yes.  Reddish brown colour.  Like autumn leaves.”

“I don't know,  _mei mei_ ,” Simon answered half-distractedly.  “I'm sure you would look lovely.”  River nodded satisfactorily, returning to her work with more vigour.

“River, have you even considered his manners?” he asked, getting them back on topic.  She lifted an eyebrow and he took that as a sign to continue.  “His table manners a deplorable,” he said, approaching with a little more confidence and taking a set beside her at the dinner table.  “He can't have a meal without belching or cussing or spitting food back on his plate.  How do you expect to go anywhere with him when he can't even go a meal on  _Serenity_  without offending someone?"

 _‘Usually me,’_  he added mentally.

“I did not choose him for his table manners,” River agreed.  “But it is not too late – the dog will still be taught new tricks so long as the evoking stimuli and establishing operations are implemented correctly.  Will have Jayne ready for polite society in a week.  

“A day if I use sexual intercourse as an incentive,” she added wickedly.

Simon paled slightly at what she implied, but soldiered on.  “I’m glad you mentioned that,” he said slowly, although he would have rather have brought it up on his own.  “What about the whores?”

River rolled her eyes and sent him another boob look.  “They are in the past,” she said with such conviction that Simon struggled not to believe her  “Jayne values the institution.  Would not stray from marital bed.

“I think you are underestimating Jayne’s loyalty,” she said with a slight edge to her voice.

Simon scoffed.  If anyone was mistaking Jayne’s loyalty it certainly wasn’t him.  “Jayne is a mercenary,  _mei mei_ ,” he said pointedly.  “He kills people for money and he doesn’t care what side it comes from.  I believe that is the very definition of disloyal.

“He tried to turn us both in to the Alliance!” he added, his voice rising to hysterics.

“But he’s been so well behaved of late,” River answered him sweetly, her light tone aimed at quelling his hysteria.  “Past transgressions.  Must be forgot and never brought to mind.

“If you have nothing else, I must get back to work,” she said, gesturing vaguely to her table of papers.

“River,” Simon began with a long sigh.  “You – “ he cut himself off as he took a look at the pages that he had been only peripherally aware of until now.  “Are these punnet squares?”

“Yes,” River nodded.  “Am determining likely phenotype of  _zi nu_ ,” she explained.  “Am only guessing, however, based upon Jayne’s physical characteristics.  Will be more accurate once Jayne agrees to genome mapping.

“Look,” she said, her expression pleased as she handed off one of the many complicated looking punnet squares littering the table.  “92% chance of curly hair.”

It was like a light switch had suddenly flicked on in his brain.  There was no  _sane_  reason why River would want to be with the likes of Jayne Cobb.  But if The Academy had done something to her . . . programmed her to seek out a mate with certain physical characteristics.  The ideal offspring of one of The Academy’s star pupils would surely temper the mental genius with physical prowess, making Jayne the ideal candidate for procreation.

River sent him a dirty look and stated explicitly, “Simon is being a boob.”

“But it makes sense, River,” he protested.  “The Academy - ”

“If the academy wished for her to procreate, they would simply take DNA and produce the offspring themselves,” she stated firmly before he could make a bigger fool of himself.  “They would not want their product to be out of commission for nine months.”

“But, River,” he continued to argue, “what about this . . . obsession you seem to have with procreating?”

She rolled her eyes.  “I am a mammal, Simon,” she answered plainly, speaking in a slow almost condescending manner.  “It is ingrained.  My mind will not let me pretend that it is just ‘attraction’ or ‘love’.  Nothing but Libido: survival, propagation, hunger, thirst, and sex.  

“Am looking forward to the sex,” she added thoughtfully with a smile that said she was only saying it to see his reaction.

“Thank you,  _mei mei,”_  he said with a tight grimace.  “That image will haunt me for the rest of my life.”

“You asked for it,  _jie jie,_ ” she responded, smiling sweetly.

“I’m just trying to understand, River,” he said with another heavy sigh.  “Why Jayne?”

“I told you,” River answered.  “Jayne is optimal.  Attractive, protective, accepting of her strangeness.  She . . .” River paused, shaking her head and taking the moment to find the words for herself.  “I like him,” she said more slowly.  “I . . . I do not wish for another, Simon.”

There was nothing that Simon could say to that, no logic that could defeat her statement.  He remembered Beastly once again, remembering how she loved that dog with her whole heart even in the face of their parents’ constant rebuke.  It was only the low-down and dastardly cruelty of their father that had finally separated her from that mangy creature otherwise she would have kept that dog until the day he died.  Simon couldn’t bear to play that same dastardly role in his sister’s life.

So Simon just sat in silence, watching as River continued her work happily working out the likelihood of various desired features.  Auburn hair: 74% (Jayne’s genes making a clear contribution here).  Almond eyes: 52%.  Cupids bow: 21%.  Height greater than 6 foot: 88% if male; 64% if female.  Long fingers: 60%.

They would make cute children, he supposed.  Little River-like children with curly auburn hair and blue eyes.

“Not blue,” River corrected, reading his thoughts.  “Does not carry recessive gene.”

“Oh,” Simon responded, thinking she must have said this once before.  “That’s a shame.”

“Yes,” River agreed.  “But children will be very handsome all the same.  High probability of desirable features.”

Simon smiled gently at his sister, squeezing her shoulder as he stood to take his leave.  “Can’t argue with the math,  _mei mei_ ,” he told her, the implication of his words clear.

“The math is indisputable,” she said again, and this time he didn’t argue.

The math was perfect.

Even if it did point to Jayne.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> mei mei: little sister  
> jie jie: big brother  
> zhang fu: husband  
> hudan: bastard  
> zi nu: children
> 
> Notes:  
> Yes the wolfhound is totally a metaphor. If you've ever seen an Irish Wolfhound it's easy to imagine it as the sort of animal that the Tam's would not approve of with it all huge and scraggly looking. They just always look a little unkempt due to the wiry fur.  
> I don't tend to put a lot of stock in IQ tests in general, so Jayne scoring at the exceptional level doesn't seem at all out of character in my mind, although it might for others. Mostly I just liked imagining the look on Simon's face when he found out there was only 14 points difference between him and Jayne.


End file.
